Danielle Steel explores the perils of dating, relationships, and love in a novel that takes us into the intoxicating, infuriating world of three charming single men, also known as…

Toxic Bachelors

They were the best of friends and the most daunting of bachelors....Charlie Harrington, a handsome philanthropist, has such high expectations for his perfect bride that no mortal need apply....Adam Weiss, a forty-something celebrity lawyer, prefers his women very young, very voluptuous, and very short-term….And for Gray Hawk, a gifted artist with a knack for attracting troubled relationships, women are fine; it’s just the idea of family he can’t imagine (particularly the family of the woman he’s dating).

Now the three friends, spending their annual summer vacation cruising the Mediterranean aboard Charlie’s majestic yacht, are about to have their bachelorhood rocked. By autumn all three will fall precipitously into relationships they never saw coming. Charlie begins dating a crusading social worker who couldn’t be further from his ideal–until he makes a stunning discovery about her. Adam gets involved with his usual twenty-something bombshell–only this one has a remarkable mind of her own. And Gray, who has avoided both business and family like the plague, has managed to fall head over heels for a successful career woman– who just happens to be a mother as well.

As another holiday on the yacht approaches, and with it a turning point in each man’s life, the three bachelors are forced to face the things that scare them most: their phobias about relationships, the wounds of the past–and the kind of women who challenge their deepest terrors. What happens next will spark big changes for Charlie, Adam, and Gray–and might just put an end to their carousing days forever. For as the once-carefree trio is about to discover, love is the most unpredictable adventure of all.

Filled with all the joy, complexity, and unexpected surprises of life, Toxic Bachelors is Danielle Steel at her poignant and penetrating best.

When you've got three attractive men in a Steel novel, each determined to stay single, you can expect romance, love and marriage vows around the corner, as well as the usual mix of glamour, fashion and wealth. Charles Sumner Harrington, born to affluence, has no family and, following several botched engagements, is, at 46, a perfectionist who will probably never meet the woman of his dreams. Adam Weiss, a Harvard Law-trained hotshot, was burned by a nasty divorce; at 41, he is a sworn bachelor who parties with the pretty, young and clueless. Gray Hawk, a New York artist living hand-to-mouth at 50, was adopted at birth by globe-trotting, drug-taking rock stars; he's drawn exclusively to women whose middle name is "victim." The three friends take their annual summer Mediterranean booze cruise on Charles's luxurious yacht, and in the hubbub there and back in New York, each ends up crossing paths with a woman who turns his life upside down. After the initial bliss, there are confrontations, challenges and threats to promising relationships. Despite relentlessly reiterating her characters' Freudian backstories, Steel delivers the inevitable happy endings in the usual nontoxic, satisfying manner. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Categories:

• Romance
  • Contemporary